JmOz Posted April 25, 2020 Report Share Posted April 25, 2020 Have a game I am running tonight and having trouble with the pacing of the chapter What the overall story needs is to emphasize that the city has fallen into (open) gang warfare. That without the return of the cities main superhero (Who is dead) the street crime will increase. Furthermore the head of a major corp is trying to get the crime even higher (he is working both sides, selling security & providing weapons/drugs/etc to the criminal element). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
death tribble Posted April 25, 2020 Report Share Posted April 25, 2020 Why not have the head of the major corp work the media so that they are spreading paranoia about the major crime rate, that they suggest the police are under-equipped and stretched to breaking point or that the police are corrupt (a blogger can do this as paper and TV news editors have standards in place). They can also feed adverts in getting the things the police do not have. They can build the hysteria bit by bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JmOz Posted April 25, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 25, 2020 THe media is a good angle, would make a good arc if they had to get info to condemn the LT big bad used... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grandmastergm Posted April 25, 2020 Report Share Posted April 25, 2020 1 hour ago, JmOz said: Have a game I am running tonight and having trouble with the pacing of the chapter What the overall story needs is to emphasize that the city has fallen into (open) gang warfare. That without the return of the cities main superhero (Who is dead) the street crime will increase. Furthermore the head of a major corp is trying to get the crime even higher (he is working both sides, selling security & providing weapons/drugs/etc to the criminal element). I'd say either let the PCs watch it on the media or see it in person; or perhaps they're the ones that find out that the main superhero is dead. Then they can continue investigating the gang war and find out where the weapons are coming from. Then it concludes with a showdown between them and the villain. I do like the RoboCop-esque storyline of a corrupt corporate executive working with the criminal elements. It could even be his effort to ensure that his company gets to take over the police using their new robots or superbeings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JmOz Posted April 25, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 25, 2020 Whole campaign is based around the hero missing/dead basically it is a hereditary hero thing (think the Phantom). He went missing and the retired version of the character (twice removed, so a bit of Batman Beyond Bruce Wayne type) recruited the team. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
assault Posted April 25, 2020 Report Share Posted April 25, 2020 1 hour ago, JmOz said: What the overall story needs is to emphasize that the city has fallen into (open) gang warfare. That without the return of the cities main superhero (Who is dead) the street crime will increase. Questions: what does open gang warfare mean in practical terms? who is involved? what are their goals? what are their relationships with law enforcement? Why is the presence of the city's main superhero needed to prevent street crime from increasing? What does one person do that however many police officers don't? Lord Liaden 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JmOz Posted April 25, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 25, 2020 6 minutes ago, assault said: Questions: what does open gang warfare mean in practical terms? who is involved? what are their goals? what are their relationships with law enforcement? Why is the presence of the city's main superhero needed to prevent street crime from increasing? What does one person do that however many police officers don't? City is getting close to being declared a state of emergency with martial law, enabling the big bad to take more control Various street gangs, mostly all of them unknowingly working for the same person (the fighting is helping him get political power) Thug level it is about territory and "respect" for the puppet master it is about getting total control of the city Law enforcment is pretty corrupt in the city, he controls a number of judges and most police (including the chief of police) Super Hero was a hero of the city, fighting a lot of the corruption Symbolisim... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
massey Posted April 25, 2020 Report Share Posted April 25, 2020 Have graffiti start appearing in places it normally wouldn't be. One of the PCs lives in a trendy part of town, but he walks out of his apartment building one morning and sees that the fancy store across the street has its windows busted out. You don't have to rely on the news media, have the players see it in person. One of their neighbors comes home crying late at night. She's been mugged on the street. The hero in his secret ID comforts her and calls 911. The call takes forever before it is answered, and the hero waits up all night with her until an exhausted officer finally arrives the next morning. He's been responding to calls all night. He half-heartedly writes down her info, gives her a dismissive response, and leaves. One of the players comes home to find his house burglarized. At first he thinks it's the act of one of his enemies. Did they find his secret room with his costume in it? Nope. It turns out it's just random crime. A DNPC (or the DNPC's child, husband, wife, whoever) has started behaving strangely. When the PC investigates, he finds out the DNPC has started taking a street drug. It's called Zoom (or Pep, or Zip, or whatever), and the drug is supposed to give you a lot of energy and make your mind sharper. All the college kids are taking it, the PC learns. The DNPC has been really busy with their work and family life (work in something that they did with the PC recently) and has been burning the candle at both ends. Unfortunately it caught up to them, and now they're crashing, and you see Zoom's awful side effects. Now that the PC is looking for it, he starts to see a lot of people with the same bloodshot eyes, drawn pale faces, and nervous twitches. Somebody is pushing this stuff hard, and if he analyzes the drugs it looks like it's coming from the same manufacturer. One of the PCs stumbles across a robbery in progress. It's just normal people, so he decides to handle it on his own. He's doing fine until one of the criminals pulls out some hi-tech hand cannon and puts a 12D6 double knockback energy blast into the hero. Yeah, I stole this one from Spider-Man Homecoming. How did a guy robbing a liquor store get such hardware? Unfortunately, the bad guy tries to fire it once too often, and the thing goes kablooey. The hero doesn't get a chance to look at it, but clearly somebody is supplying advanced tech to dirtbags. Just some ideas. If you can sprinkle them in over the course of a couple sessions, it will feel more organic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
assault Posted April 25, 2020 Report Share Posted April 25, 2020 How much do you want to get done during this session? There's an obvious difference between the storyline being dragged out over multiple sessions and it being done in one. Given the way it has been described, it doesn't look like it has been designed for "done in one". So for this session I would probably focus on general scene setting, followed by an encounter with a bunch of thugs with high tech gear. Hmm... Designing it for "done in one" could be cool. It would still probably sprawl over into two sessions, but keeping things concise has its merits. The bait and switch would be that the corporate guy is only a speed bump, and the guy you encounter along the way will turn out to be a much bigger threat in the future. Lord Liaden 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted April 26, 2020 Report Share Posted April 26, 2020 Any of your PCs have contacts with local law enforcement, or street informants, or criminal investigative journalists? They'd be the first to let a PC know that the lid is about to blow off the pot of local crime, and maybe that there's hints that something or someone is artificially turning up the heat. assault 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JmOz Posted April 26, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 26, 2020 1) cop in secret ID 2) Criminal Cat burglar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sundog Posted April 26, 2020 Report Share Posted April 26, 2020 Super-heroic wise, if you have a less-violent or non-violent enemy the PCs have previously tangled with, have a hero run into them as they're packing up to leave. Have them explain that this city's "going to hell" and they don't want to be here no more. assault 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JmOz Posted April 26, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 26, 2020 So had the Medical Examiner character (precog) get a vision right before her and the captain would be shot leaving the station after describing how bad things had gotten This led to an investigation on who did the shooting, ending in a fight by two agents of "The evil Corp" though as usual they know who but can't prove it... China town lit on fire as a forecast of next session. (China town mob is the only group not under evil corp...also guardian of one of the magic anchors keeping the big bad from being released...3 down, 2 to go) Amorkca 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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